Global Initiatives & Programmes

From the coast to the deep sea

As coastal and pelagic (open ocean) fisheries around the world have collapsed, fishing effort has shifted to the deep sea and previously unexploited fish species. Here, overfishing can quickly deplete local fish populations - even within a single season.

Some newly fished populations, such as monkfish, Patagonian toothfish, blue ling, and orange roughy, have already collapsed in some areas. There is insufficient data on other populations to determine what level of fishing is sustainable.

At present most deep-water species are likely to be over-exploited - and as many as 40% of the world’s fishing grounds are now in waters deeper than 200m.

Painful impacts

The impacts of declining fish catches are being painfully felt by many coastal fishing communities around the world.

Newfoundland in Canada is an early example. For centuries the cod stocks of the Grand Banks seemed inexhaustible. But in 1992 the cod fishery collapsed - and some 40,000 people lost their jobs overnight, including 10,000 fishermen.

Nearly 20 years later, the cod have still not recovered. Science also indicates that the ecosystem has substantially changed, meaning that the cod may never make a comeback.

Fishing for orange roughy (also known as deep-sea perch) is a relatively new phenomenon - but one that has already led to severe decline of this long-lived deep-sea species.
Some populations have been fished to commercial extinction in as little as four years.

Orange roughy congregate around seamounts - underwater mountains often found on the High Seas. WWF and many others are calling for urgent and strong measures, including fishing bans, to be adopted and enforced at the United Nations level in order to protect these areas from fishing activities.